‘The Craft’ Gave Power To Alt-Goth Weird Girls With One Perfect Line

If you or someone you love was a goth girl weirdo between the years 1996 and 2016, then you’re likely familiar with the witchy cult-classic horror flick The Craft. It is, as writer Kristen Yoonsoo Kim said in her look back on the film’s 20th anniversary, “a rite of passage for young women.” Why? Because The Craft made weird girls cool. It made them sexy, dark, powerful, and dangerous. In The Craft, the scary goth girl who worships Satan isn’t a side character or the butt of a joke—she’s the hero, villain, and everything in between.

Directed by Andrew Fleming, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Peter Filardi, The Craft starred Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, and Rachel True as four outcast teenage girls (Sarah, Nancy, Bonnie, and Rochelle) who practice witchcraft and worship a deity named Manon. Sarah (Tunney) is, at first, the “normal” one. She’s new to the school and eager to fit in. Despite a warning from Nancy (Balk), the leader of the school’s “scary bitch” posse, Sarah goes out on a date with an asshole jock, Chris (Skeet Ulrich). But after he starts a nasty, untrue rumor about her, Sarah comes to her senses and takes her place among the weirdos.

With the support of their coven, the four girls thrive. Sarah, a witch with actual powers, helps her friends cast spells to humiliate Chris, get back at the racist who was bullying Rochelle, heal Bonnie’s burn scars, and lift Nancy out of poverty. But it’s more than just spell work giving the girls power; it’s solidarity. Witchcraft, in The Craft, is a metaphor. It’s a disillusioned teen girl who refuses to conform to a sexist high school hierarchy. In other words, a weirdo. It’s a lonely, isolating existence—unless you can find like-minded friends.

As director Andrew Fleming said in a 2016 interview with The Guardian about the movie, “I realized The Craft was essentially a character piece: the story of four teenage girls not fitting in at school as much as one about spells and witchcraft. I didn’t want the witches to have pointed hats or fly around on broomsticks. I wanted them to look like they were in the Cure.”

Costume designer Deborah Everton more delivered on that front. With dark make-up and layered jewelry, all four girls made school uniforms look undeniably cool. Every Hot Topic shopper in the ’90s and 2000s wished they could recreate Fairuza Balk’s dark red lip, cross earrings, and spiky choker look. But my favorite look in the movie—and the scene with the on perfect line that encapsulates why the movie still speaks to so many today—comes when the girls take a bus out of the city.

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Sitting in the back of the bus, all four girls rock sunglasses and resting bitch face that dares someone, anyone, to challenge them. Sarah and Rochelle don flowing, floral dresses, while Nancy and Bonnie are all black clothes and crucifix pendants. As they exit the bus, the driver warns them to “watch out for those weirdos.”

In arguably the best shot of the film, the girls turn to him. Nancy scoffs, lowers her glasses, and delivers the film’s iconic line: “We are the weirdos, mister.”

Then the bus doors close, the sound of Marianne Faithfull’s “Witches’ Song” swells, and our girls saunter off into the woods to perform witchcraft. It is, objectively, a perfect moment. It’s no wonder this line has been quoted, screen-capped, and GIF’d over and over again over the last 27 years. In this moment, four gorgeous, powerful, enviable teen girls owned their weirdness. “Weirdo” was not an insult, but a badge of honor. Being weird alone is isolating, but together, it gives them power.

Unfortunately, power corrupts, and it leads to their downfall in the end. But the message for weird goth girls still resonates. Why fit in when you can band together with a group of freaks? Just be careful about summoning the power of Manon.